This invention generally relates to a system for operating, monitoring and controlling a plurality of elements, such as printing press machinery and associated accessories and auxiliaries. More particularly, the invention relates to a unified system for operating, monitoring, and controlling a plurality of elements, such as printing press machinery and associated auxiliaries and accessories with a central control element which eliminates the redundancy of controls normally associated with each individual printing press machine, accessory or auxiliary, and which produces a desired set of printing conditions characteristic of a finished printed product by automatically relating particular printing job requirements associated with the finished printed product to the appropriate machine language functions of the associated printing press machinery and accessories and/or auxiliaries.
The production of final, finished printed products employing conventional offset lithography is oftentimes a complicated task. An offset printing production line generally includes a multitude of printing presses and accessories and/or auxiliaries, all of which must be simultaneously controlled and monitored as a necessary part of obtaining a finished printed product.
Referring to FIG. 13, a typical offset printing production line 130 may include one or more of the following systems: sheet cleaner systems 131; systems 132 for cleaning the impression cylinders and blanket cylinders of printing presses, such as the Automatic Blanket Cleaner (xe2x80x9cABCxe2x80x9d) produced and sold by Baldwin Technology Company of Stamford, Connecticut; a plurality of printing press units 133 corresponding to a number of ink colors necessary to produce a final printed product; dryer units 136 to dry the various sheets, including but not limited to infrared and/or ultraviolet systems; various ink and solvent supply and circulator systems 137; print temperature management systems 138; and the like.
In prior practice, each of the various systems (hereinafter generally referred to as printing press machinery and accessories and/or auxiliaries) often included separate, individual xe2x80x9ccontrolxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cuserxe2x80x9d stations, each of which had to be individually programmed and controlled by a pressman who was operating the printing line. This, oftentimes, led to undue clutter and confusion in the press operating environment, owing to the extraordinary number of separate control systems. Moreover, each individual control system typically operated with its own unique xe2x80x9cmachinexe2x80x9d language due in part both to the varied number of manufacturers of printing press auxiliaries and accessories, and to the lack of universal machine operating languages. Furthermore, as the pressman""s continuous monitoring of the multiple xe2x80x9cmachine languagexe2x80x9d control systems was both constant and necessary to achieve a finished printed product having a desired quality level, the quality of the finished product was often dependent both on the skill and experience of the press operator and his familiarity with the printing conditions and/or accessories necessary to produce such finished product.
Another related concern is that the production of the finalized printed product be characterized by a plurality of xe2x80x9cprintingxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cpressxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cjobxe2x80x9d conditions specific to the printing job sought to be implemented by the pressman. These xe2x80x9cpressxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cjobxe2x80x9d specific conditions must then somehow be translated by the press operator to xe2x80x9cmachine specificxe2x80x9d functions of the printing accessories that are provided to carry out those xe2x80x9cprintingxe2x80x9d conditions.
For example, the production of a finished work, such as a printed poster, entails the selection of numerous tasks and/or attributes which can be characterized as xe2x80x9cprintingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cjobxe2x80x9d specific. These attributes might include, for example: the type of ink which will be used and the characteristics thereof (such as the degree of ink tack or the degree of ink coverage); the type of paper which the poster will be printed on and the attributes thereof (such as whether coated or non-coated stock will be used, the weight of the stock, whether the paper is virgin or recycled, and similar attributes); and whether any type of coating will be applied to the poster and, if so, whether the coating will be water based or solvent based, as well as the degree of the coverage of that coating as applied to the product (heavy, medium, or light).
After a press operator has discerned, or otherwise determined, the xe2x80x9cprintingxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cjobxe2x80x9d specific conditions associated with a particular printing job, he would then have to xe2x80x9ctranslatexe2x80x9d those xe2x80x9cjobxe2x80x9d specific conditions to xe2x80x9cmachine specificxe2x80x9d functions by programming the individual control systems associated with the press, accessories and/or auxiliaries to obtain those print conditions. This would, of course, typically entail the pressman""s xe2x80x9cinterpretationxe2x80x9d of the xe2x80x9cjob specificxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cpress languagexe2x80x9d conditions to translate those conditions to xe2x80x9cmachine specificxe2x80x9d functions appropriate for each press, accessory and/or auxiliary necessary to carry out the printing condition. In short, the pressman would have to manually set each of the press components, accessories and/or auxiliaries, based in part on his given and specific experience or knowledge of the accessories and the printing process in general, to achieve the xe2x80x9cjob specificxe2x80x9d goals.
Thus, for example, a pressman would have to manually program or otherwise set each of the individual presses, accessories and/or auxiliaries to perform associated tasks to the given degree necessary and in an appropriate correlation to achieve individual printing characteristics. For a typical press apparatus or accessory or auxiliary (for example, the xe2x80x9cAutomatic Blanket Cleanerxe2x80x9d mounted to an offset printing unit), the programmer would program the controls in order to, for example, advance the cleaning cloth a certain incremental amount according to a certain frequency of printing and/or operating speed of the press; to release a given amount of cleaning fluid (e.g., number of sprays) and discern a proper mix of cleaning fluid (e.g., ratios of solvent and/or water thereof); all in order to accomplish a particular set of printing job requirements. This is not only tedious and laborious, but requires a tremendous amount of skill and experience on the part of the pressman, who more than likely will have become proficient in his/her xe2x80x9ctranslationxe2x80x9d through numerous and various job runs, on the particular presses, accessories and/or auxiliaries with which he is familiar.
As will be evident, there is a great potential for error and material wastage on the part of the pressman who may not yet have achieved a sufficient level of experience to operate a given press system to achieve a desired, finished printed product. Such errors and material wastage would be amplified, of course, when different presses, auxiliaries and/or accessories are encountered by the pressman, and with which he is not yet familiar.
A variety of technological developments are known for controlling printing presses. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,775 (Roch et al.) for xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND DEVICE FOR CONTROLLING THE SETTING OF THE COMPONENTS OF A PRINTING AND CUTTING MACHINExe2x80x9d is directed to controlling the discrete functions for the exact press, although the reference is silent with respect to controlling the print specific conditions themselves via control of the printing press auxiliaries and/or accessories necessary to achieve a finished printed product. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,881 (Zingher) for a xe2x80x9cDATA INPUT UNIT AND METHOD FOR PRINTING MACHINESxe2x80x9d is directed to control of printing machine parameters themselves without addressing the need to control printing condition parameters necessary to obtain a final printed product. Still further, EPO Patent Application 0,160,167 (Stroupe) for a xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTED ELECTRONIC CONTROL OF A PRINTING PRESSxe2x80x9d is directed to controlling the operating conditions or aspects of the press itself without addressing the need to control the printing conditions necessary for a finished product through manipulation of the required auxiliaries and/or accessories.
There exists, therefore, a need for a system for monitoring and controlling a plurality of printing press machines, accessories and/or auxiliaries employed in producing a finished printed product, which not only eliminates the redundancy of control systems associated with the various press machinery accessories and/or auxiliaries and the logistical problems thereof, but which also controls printing conditions and rapidly and efficiently translates xe2x80x9cpressxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cjob specificxe2x80x9d requirements associated with a finished printed product to the appropriate xe2x80x9cmachine languagexe2x80x9d commands which will control each individual printing press auxiliary and/or accessory, thereby facilitating the job of the pressman and eliminating potential error or wastage of product to control a desired set of printing conditions.
Accordingly, a system is provided for controlling and monitoring a plurality of printing press machinery auxiliaries and/or accessories associated with producing a finished printed product to control a desired set of printing conditions.
Further, a centralized system is provided for monitoring and controlling a plurality of printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries to eliminate the redundancy of separate control systems associated with individual printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries, and which provides a centralized control of all of the printing press machinery, auxiliaries and/or accessories necessary to control a desired set of printing conditions to produce a finished printed product.
Further,a system is provided for controlling and monitoring a plurality of printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries, so that printing or job specific conditions associated with a finished printed product are automatically translated to appropriate machine language functions associated with each of the individual printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries, thereby eliminating the necessity for a pressman to manually interpret job specific conditions and translate the same to machine specific language for the printing press accessories and/or auxiliaries which might be encountered to produce the finished printed product.
Additionally, a centralized system is provided for monitoring and controlling a plurality of printing press machinery accessories and/or auxiliaries which will eliminate the redundancy of the control systems currently existent with each and every printing press machinery, auxiliary and/or accessory associated with a finished printed product and which will automatically translate a given set of printing or job specific conditions as input by the printing press operator and conform the same to an appropriate set of machine specific commands to control the printing press machinery, auxiliaries and/or accessories and manipulate the same to carry out the desired printing conditions in a manner which is rapid and efficient.
The foregoing advantages of the invention are illustrative only and are not intended to be exhaustive or limitative of the advantages which can be realized by the invention. Thus, these and other advantages of the invention will be apparent from description of the invention set forth herein or can be learned from practicing the invention, both as embodied herein or as modified in view of any variations which may be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the present invention resides in the novel parts, constructions, arrangements, combinations and improvements herein described and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
In accordance with the invention, there is provided a novel system for controlling and monitoring a plurality of various printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries which are employed in producing a finished printed product.
Briefly described, the system includes means for controlling a plurality of printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries.
The system features novel software means comprising a database of catalogued information, including a historical database of various printing press or job specific conditions and a historical database of preset machine specific data which can be correlated to a given set of press or job specific data which is input to the system by the pressman and relayed to various printing press machinery, auxiliaries and/or accessories in order to produce a given finished printed product. A touch screen, or other suitable input means, is provided to interface with the control software. The CRT may display a xe2x80x9cmock-upxe2x80x9d of the printing press operation and line in order to facilitate entry of the desired printing conditions, including the conditions for the accessories and/or auxiliaries that comprise the printing press line in conjunction with the printing press machine or machinery.
In operation, a pressman enters, via the touch screen CRT, all of the specific printing conditions corresponding to a desired finished printed product. The software then compares the desired job specific printing data entered by the pressman to the preset historical database of varied printing conditions contained within the software. The historical database of printing conditions is itself matched to a corresponding set of machine specific conditions present in the historical database of preset machine specific data. Upon determining the appropriate machine specific conditions necessary for implementing the desired printing conditions, the system relays a set of instructions to each of the affected printing press machine or machines, accessories and/or auxiliaries and commands the same to operate at the desired printing conditions and, hence, the final finished printed product.
Advantageously, when confronted with a set of printing conditions and/or associated machine conditions not included within their respective historical databases, the system may xe2x80x9cupdatexe2x80x9d its historical databases so as to preserve system flexibility for future job runs. Moreover, the system may be configured in an xe2x80x9copen architecturexe2x80x9d format, enabling it to accept and translate press specific or job specific input from a variety of sources, rendering the system flexible and accommodating various printing press machinery, auxiliaries and/or accessories which do not operate under identical machine language conditions.
Finally, the software may also include the ability to report critical printing data, including the amount and quantity of material used during printing, the running times for each of the desired printing press machinery, accessories and/or auxiliaries involved, cost associated with the jobs, and other information, rendering the control system uniquely and advantageously flexible.